Bleach: Two Paths
by rimshotstinger
Summary: After the Thousand Year Blood War, Ichigo's life with Orihime is disrupted when doubles him and his friends from a forgotten timeline arrive on his front lawn. What evil they've come there to stop, even they don't know. See how each of their lives diverged from the ones we know in unexpected ways, including the alternate Ichigo being married to...Rukia! IchiRuki & IchiHime main


Ichigo Kurosaki awoke with a jolt, feeling as though he'd just received an electric shock. Something in him felt different, but he couldn't tell what until he turned his head to see Orihime still sleeping peacefully beside him in the bed they shared. Seeing his deceased mother standing over her, smiling warmly down at the two of them, made it clear: it wasn't that he felt different, but that he finally felt _the same _again.

This wasn't a dream, and Ichigo couldn't be happier to see that the spirit of his mother was the first he'd been able to see in over a year since the defeat of Yhwach. He`d always wondered what happened to her soul after his father had defeated the Arrancar Grand Fisher. He didn't know the details of why or how she could be there next to him, nor did he care. She looked at peace, happy and free.

Ichigo watched as the spirit of his mother gently laid her ethereal hand on the head of his sleeping love before gliding it down her shoulder until it came to rest on the blankets above her stomach. Then she shone with a brilliant golden light—the way, it seemed by Ichigo's recollection, that she always had during his childhood—and was gone from him. This time, he knew it was forever. The corner of his mouth, having stretched into a contented smile, caught the salty taste of a falling teardrop, alerting the young university student that he had started crying.

Funny, when she was alive, seeing his mom had always had the opposite effect on him.

Now sitting up, Ichigo used his forearm to clear the tears from his eyes, then returned his attention to the sleeper next to him. He retraced the path his mom's hand had taken across her and came to rest, as it had, upon her abdomen. By the time his gaze had reversed course, Orihime's bright eyes were opened to meet it. At that moment, he thought her gentle smile might undo the damage control he'd managed to work on his eyes before she could see him. But what welled up next wasn't more tears, but a giddy, scared feeling that filled up his chest so that he could practically feel his heart floating blissfully in it.

Ichigo smiled back at Orihime. "I...think I have some good news, Orihime," he said. Of course, by then, he'd figured out what the second piece of good news was. At least, he hoped she'd think it was good.

_Thanks, Mom._

* * *

About nine years on would see the child Ichigo had found out about that fateful morning standing in the yard in front of the emergency clinic he lived in. To anyone off the street, it might look as though he was standing out there alone, when in fact, he was in the company of a new friend with fiery red hair, dressed all in black.

"So, what's it like to be a Shinigami apprentice?" the boy, Kazui Kurosaki, asked the girl next to him.

Ichika Abarai eyed the smiling boy suspiciously, still reeling from the reveal he'd sprung on her only a moment after their first meeting minutes before. "How about you tell me what you're doing with a Shinigami uniform and a Zanpakuto first, human," she said rather forcefully, pointing at Kazui in an accusatory fashion.

Kazui shrugged, smiling at her question in a way that frustrated Ichika already. "I dunno, I've been able to do it for as long as I can remember."

"Don't lie!" Ichika came back with quickly. Her pointing finger bobbed up and down with every emphatic syllable that followed. "I bet your mommy still wipes your butt for you! There's no way you learned it on your own!"

"She does _not _wipe my butt!" Kazui yelled back with his eyes and fists clenched shut. "And I did it all by myself!"

Ichika was having none of that nonsense. "If that's true, then how come you've got a Zanpakuto already? Somebody gave it to you, right?" she asked in a smugly knowing tone.

When she saw Kazui's eyes open once more, they were coloured with confusion. "Um, no, I don't think so. It's just with me whenever I change like that."

"Unbelievable!" exclaimed Ichika with her favourite word. "All Zanpakuto come from somewhere, you know. I had to pass an apprentice test to get mine. It's not something you have just because!"

Suddenly, an ethereal darkness enveloped the young boy across from her like black flames exploding into life to consume him. It almost instantly came to rest upon his shoulders and around his middle, until a moment later, he was wearing a raiment identical to hers, save for the addition of a cream-coloured hood carried over from the clothes it had just replaced.

Ichika saw that, indeed, there now lay strapped across his back a sword like the one she had at her hip, which he glanced back at over his shoulder. "See?" he said, shrugging once more.

"Unbelievable..."

Ichika was stopped from walking over to the boy and touching the phantasmal sword when she sensed people approaching the clinic. In the moment it took for Kazui to pick up on it as well, Ichika had discerned that it was the _reiatsu _of seven people, all obviously spiritually active. However, what stunned her was that two of the incoming spiritual signatures felt identical to ones belonging to people she already knew—except that one of those people was her mom, who she still felt inside the house behind her.

"I-Ichika, it feels like—"

Kazui was cut off from saying the words "my dad" when the very subject of his words appeared from behind a hill across the road, when by all rights he should have still been inside watching his friend's boxing match. The eerily similar copy of his father was followed by one of Ichika's mother, Kazui's aunt Karin walking beside a tall man he didn't know, and behind them, Kazui's own mother walking beside his uncle Uryu. All but the tall man were instantly recognizable to Kazui, but upon closer inspection, also looked...different.

He took note that Uryu's eyes were the wrong colour.

Kazui felt himself bump into Ichika in the process of backing away instinctively as the imposters drew closer, now crossing the road. Next, he felt himself get pushed aside by the shoulder as Ichika strode out ahead of him before he could pull her back.

He wanted to grab her, but couldn't decide between that and calling for his mom or dad. Plus, he suddenly felt like he had to pee. And as the six strangers stopped a short distance from where Ichika had positioned herself, Kazui became worried that he might accidentally do one of those things before he got the chance to try either of the other two.

The man with his dad's face suddenly made a shocked expression, taking a wide stance so that he could more forcefully point in Ichika's direction, or so it looked to Kazui.

"Whoa! Does anybody else see the tiny Renji right there?!" the man exclaimed in shock so that Kazui could hear that he shared his dad's voice too.

Kazui lost sight of Ichika for a split second as she seemed to disappear completely. When his eyes caught her again, she was about four feet higher up than before, being held in front of the new Ichigo's face by the collar of her _shihakusho_ and wriggling like a worm on a fishhook. She'd moved so fast that Kazui wasn't able to put together that she had leaped at the stranger, intending to launch a flying kick at the familiar face; and his dad's double had surpassed her speed by such a margin that there was no way he could tell that the man had snatched her out of the air in mid-kick to hold her helplessly aloft.

"I'm a girl, dumbass!" roared Ichika, defiantly locking eyes with the one who held her. It was what she'd meant to say as a victory cry had her foot connected with the guy's face as planned.

Looking thoroughly unimpressed, Kazui's dad's twin squinted at the diminutive Shinigami. "Hey, kids shouldn't talk like that," he said, sounding annoyed.

Ichika inhaled for another bellow that Kazui preempted by piping up first. "Hey, why do you look like my dad?"

Only then did his dad's double take notice of the boy who'd addressed him, along with the rest of his group. He set Ichika down absently as he kept his gaze on Kazui, taking in the many features he shared with the young stranger. Behind him, the double of Kazui's mom had her hand over her mouth in shock.

The double of Kazui's dad exchanged looks with the double of Ichika's mom before looking at him once again. "You mean, you're...mine and Rukia's..."

Confused, Kazui shook his head. "Mm-mm. That's not my mom," he told the man, pointing at Ichika's mom. "That is," he corrected, pulling his pointer to the right person behind them both. All three shared a look.

Ichika vanished again from where she'd been as her actual mom came out to the yard along with everyone who'd been in the house. She reappeared between her mom and dad as they and the rest of that day's guests came up from behind Kazui. He felt his mom's hands clasp around his shoulders as she lowered herself to his level. All of a sudden, he wasn't scared anymore.

"Hey, looks like the Twelfth let some _gigai _get loose," said Renji, Ichika's dad. "Though I don't know why they'd have _gigai _for any of you humans."

The Rukia that stood across the yard from Kazui stepped forward from her own group. She looked different from the woman standing beside Ichika, with slightly shorter, but still rather long, hair that was gathered into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She wore a _shihakusho _with a white coat over it. "We're not _gigai_, we're real," she said to the group opposite her.

"That's a stupid thing to say!" cried Kazui's dad's friend Keigo as he lunged forward from behind the crowd of parents so that his head came over Rukia's shoulder. "Obviously only one of you can be real, and the real Rukia's right here!" he said, prodding Rukia in the cheek with his first finger. Renji looked prepared to punch his lights out before Rukia beat him to it by jabbing Keigo in the gut with her elbow. He stumbled back to where he'd been behind them.

"Look, I don't know what's going on either," came the reflection of Kazui's dad. He had really long hair compared to the man beside Kazui, grown out to nearly be touching his shoulders at the back. He also wore a _shihakusho_, but it had a high, stiff collar attached to it. Like Uryu, his eyes were the wrong colour—an eerie gold. "Everything just went dark and then we ended up in a field over there," he told them, gesturing behind him. "We figured this would be the best place to find someone we knew," he explained. "But we obviously didn't expect to meet ourselves."

* * *

Nearly ten years ago—but not the same ten years as Kazui's father had known—Ichigo was frozen in place, from pain as much as relief, as he watched Yhwach fall away from him in two pieces in what looked like slow-motion. He knew that thanks to Uryu, it should finally be over. But, whether by adrenaline, or thanks to the voice in the back of his head yelling at him to not let himself relax, Ichigo couldn't lower his arm. It hung stiffly in place at the end of the arc it had traced through the body of the Quincy Emperor.

Ichigo's instincts were validated a moment later when Yhwach, his eyes still boring into Ichigo—or perhaps looking through him at a future he'd seen that was now racing out of his reach—summoned the strength to yell something in a language Ichigo didn't understand. The command of "Heilig Feuer!" did not need to be understood for its instantaneous effect to be felt, however.

Ichigo and Uryu both burst into white flames. The same thing happened to each and every Quincy in existence at the same moment, while their king seemed to skip the burning phase entirely as his falling body crumbled away into black ash. His vindictive grin would be the last thing to leave the world as the two men who had been closest to him fell to the ground writhing as their blood betrayed them. Elsewhere, some Quincy disappeared into brilliance cursing the name of their master, while others went out like true martyrs and praised him as they burned.

It was all over in a matter of seconds, but it didn't feel that way to Ichigo.

Opening his eyes to a dark void, his breath ragged, an ironically cold sweat clinging to him as he hung there, Ichigo at first saw nothing. Then, from out the darkness there stepped a small but familiar figure. Or perhaps the darkness had coalesced to send forth an avatar—Ichigo couldn't be sure what he'd seen. Whatever the case, it took the form of Rukia, but as he'd seen her on the night the two of them had first met. Her hair and uniform were unchanged from that time more than two years gone, and she looked at him with a gentle smile.

"Hello, Ichigo," she said. Though he saw her lips move, no sound seemed to travel between them, and her voice reverberated from inside his head. She began to walk calmly across the black expanse, unfettered by whatever invisible force was keeping Ichigo suspended in place.

"Rukia?" asked Ichigo in bewilderment.

"No, Ichigo," the Rukia doppelganger answered as she came face-to-face with him about an arm's length away, measured by one of her arms. "I am the Shinigami power that has remained inside you all this time."

"W-what?" Ichigo asked. His head already ached with the revelations he'd already received that day about himself: how his Inner Hollow had actually been the spirit of his _zanpakuto_ all along, or how the one he'd thought to be said spirit had actually been the manifestation of the Quincy powers he'd inherited from his mother. How many more things lurked inside of him that he didn't know about?

"Didn't you think it was curious that your reforged blade took the form of your original _zanpakuto_ just before you finished Yhwach?" asked the figure claiming not to be Rukia. "That's because Yhwach had absorbed your Quincy powers as well as your Hollow powers. But since your Hollow powers are mixed with your Shinigami powers, he expected to take them both and leave you with nothing."

"What are you talking about? What's happening?" Ichigo urged, growing impatient.

"I am your Shinigami powers that aren't tied to your Hollow powers. Because I am not the powers you were born with," elaborated the figure.

It took a moment before Ichigo realized what she was saying.

"Do you understand now? I'm the powers you took from Rukia that night when you first became a Shinigami, Ichigo. I'm also the only powers that can't be taken from you," she explained, calmly, with such little urgency that Ichigo momentarily forgot that he'd gotten there via spontaneous human combustion.

"I don't get it," admitted Ichigo.

"Ichigo," said the figure into his brain, "Are you aware of why you took so much power from Rukia that night?"

_That _Ichigo did understand. "Yeah. It was because she felt guilty about Kaien, right?"

"Yes. And what made it possible for that feeling to give you nearly all of her power...was the Hogyoku stored inside of her soul by Kisuke Urahara."

Okay, so far, Ichigo was tracking what the new Rukia was saying. He'd been told before that the Hogyoku's true power was the ability to manifest the desires of those around it into reality. "So then how come you didn't get taken by Yhwach?" Ichigo asked, eager for the last piece of the puzzle that had been laid before him so suddenly.

"Because my presence within you was due to a wish granted by the Hogyoku," answered the Inner Rukia. "I am a collection of spiritual energy that passed through—or at least by way of—the Hogyoku on my journey from Rukia's soul into yours. Just like Aizen, I cannot be destroyed. Rukia's wish had been for you to _take her powers away and keep them_, so that means, I cannot be removed, by any means."

Ichigo's breath hitched as his mind put together the full extent of what that meant, but the Inner Rukia continued to speak before he could say anything.

"I see, you realize by now. I'm the power that stayed with you even after the Final Getsuga Tensho. I'm what made it possible for you to develop your Fullbring abilities even before your original Shinigami powers had returned. And I'm the reason your _zanpakuto _now looks like it did back when mine was the power you were learning to use."

"How come I've never seen you until now?" asked Ichigo.

"When you awakened your Hollow powers, and your Quincy powers in response to them, I was absorbed by the Hollow Zangetsu. However, he couldn't fully absorb me because I am not something that can be affected by other forces. I've slept within him all this time, until Yhwach pulled him and your Quincy powers from you just a moment ago. As always, I remained behind."

"So, that means I'm just a Shinigami now?" asked Ichigo.

"At the moment, but listen, Ichigo," said Inner Rukia, suddenly becoming incredibly serious. "Even though Yhwach took your Quincy powers away, your blood is still that of a Quincy, and right now, it's burning you from the inside out. I came here to tell you that when your Hollow powers return to you, you must merge completely with them in order to extinguish Yhwach's flames."

Ichigo was confused. "My Hollow powers will come back?"

"Yes. Yhwach reclaimed your Quincy powers, and because they returned to their true source, they're lost to you forever. But a Quincy, no matter how powerful, cannot contain a Hollow within himself for long because of their conflicting nature. When you cut open Yhwach, he began rapidly bleeding _reiatsu_, and among that _reiatsu _was your Hollow powers, drawn back to you by nature. They will arrive here any moment."

"What about you?"

"I have to sleep again, Ichigo," said the Inner Rukia, taking on a sad smile directed at her feet. "You see, the attack that put an end to Yhwach, it was a version of the Final Getsuga Tensho that you unlocked the instant before you struck," she explained, "It was the only way to defeat him."

"Hold on," argued Ichigo, though he wasn't sure why. "Last time, I had to ask _Ossan_ to teach me. How could I have done it without even knowing?"

Inner Rukia's sad smile broadened slightly as she locked eyes with him again, though became no less sad. "The rules are different now, Ichigo. You should know that."

Just then, Inner Rukia began to fade back into the darkness from which she'd appeared. The blackness surrounding them seemed to leech into her like spilled coffee into a napkin, overtaking and erasing her.

"Wait, hold on!"

Now the sad smile that Inner Rukia wore curled up at one side. "Why are you worried, Ichigo? Didn't I tell you that I can't leave? I'm just going to sleep for a while. But I'll see you again someday."

By the time she'd finished her sentiment, its echoes in Ichigo's head were all that remained after she had been swallowed up completely by the void. But Ichigo didn't have time to miss her. Like a meteorite breaking through the clouds to come screaming down to Earth, a white presence punched through the void above Ichigo to land across from him, near where Inner Rukia had first appeared.

Zangetsu had returned. But he was no longer the same.

A tall, white Hollow did indeed bring itself to full height before Ichigo the next moment, but it was not the one he'd expected—it was not a mirror image of himself cast all in white. Instead, the creature before him bore a face like his Hollow mask, complete with a pair of angular horns that jutted forward. It wore no _shahakusho_ and instead was stark naked. For some reason, that put the fear in Ichigo of staring down a feral animal. Its upright stance was the only thing at that moment that seemed to separate it from a wild beast.

However, more unsettling than anything else, and more dehumanizing, was the fact that its body seemed to be broken apart, with a large portion of it missing on the left side. From the chin down, it looked as though close to half of it had been eaten away by something corrosive. The hole in the center of its remainder of a chest no longer had a defined shape, its boundaries open on one side out into the darkness behind the monster, clearly visible as there was no chest on that side to obscure it from view. It was now more of a Hollow Notch than a Hollow Hole. Along with almost half of its torso, the thing was missing the corresponding arm, though strangely, had managed to keep its left leg from the shin down. The lower portion of leg seemed held in place, and able to move as normal, almost as if attached to the rest of the body by invisible strings that manipulated its movements.

The incomplete creature began stalking towards the immobile Ichigo as his heart rate skyrocketed. Had Inner Rukia really been serious about him having to _merge_ with that thing?

He and his Inner Hollow had learned during their time together to work as a team, but always at arm's length. Even when Ichigo changed on the outside, on the inside it was like those transformations were due to them shaking hands. Other times Ichigo would lose himself, but never willingly, and he was always trying to claw his way back to the top whenever that happened. But now, Inner Rukia said that he and this monster needed to put aside their differences and come together completely.

Except their differences had become far more prominent than before. Would he still be a man when he awoke, or a monster to be slain?

When it reached Ichigo, the first thing the bestial Hollow did was thrust its remaining hand into Ichigo's chest to clutch at the heart that had been thundering in his ears. Unable to move, Ichigo could only watch—and scream—as his still-beating heart was wrenched out of his body and discarded to fall into the void below.

Their biggest difference had been put aside.

The Hollow, still wordless, then jammed its arm fully into the hole it had just made in Ichigo's chest, but by then, it was impossible for Ichigo to scream any louder than he already had been. As he carried on, he barely noticed as the Hollow began to be drawn into his chest via its new entryway, suddenly losing its solidity and being pulled in as if it were bathwater and the hole in Ichigo's chest a drain.

Ichigo awoke to his own screams and sat bolt upright. He was completely naked, but more pressing than that, he looked dead. The metallic sound of his screams had caused him to shut his mouth in shock long enough to take in the fact that he had the complexion of a cold corpse. His cold, ragged breathing increased in speed as he, unable to look, touched his fingers to his chest. To his horror, they found only empty space where his heart ought to be.

Mercifully, darkness took him again the next moment.

* * *

Some time before Kazui was even born, the bright yellow of a waitress uniform from a local café caught Ichigo's weary eye as he was exiting university one afternoon. Orihime stood out like a canary perched among the pigeons in her sunny dress, complete with a ruffled white pinafore apron bearing the café's logo in red. She was similarly offset from the passing students by her chipper smile, contrasted by their exhausted looks, which Ichigo likely shared.

Orihime had made a habit of bringing Ichigo food from the café where she worked ever since he'd begun his life as a university medical student. Life had become pretty hectic in the six months since their defeat of Yhwach—the clinic was busier than usual, and Ichigo splitting his time between being at school and studying for it had caused proper sleep and meals to fall by the wayside—so Orihime's efforts were greatly appreciated. All the same, he felt guilty accepting her charity when he barely saw her, or the rest of his friends, any other time. He felt like a parasite.

However, like a parasite, he seemed always to be hungry, and so found his legs eagerly drawing him towards the white takeout container she held as much as to Orihime herself. It was a walk of shame, but the routine had gone on past the point where his pride could stop him. The urging of Ichigo's own self-respect were easily drowned out by his growling stomach.

A couple of guys beat Ichigo to Orihime when he was still halfway to her. He couldn't hear what they said, but judging by the way Orihime defensively drew the takeout container closer to her chest, it was clear that she was either attempting to stop a couple of desperate losers from swiping the food she'd brought, or else she was self-consciously covering something more appealing to their desperate loser gaze.

The only way Ichigo could have closed the distance between himself and the two guys was if he'd still been able to use _shunpo. _He'd forgotten how tired he was in an instant.

"Hey, Orihime, sorry I kept you waiting," Ichigo said, shouldering in between both students carried by his innocent tone, but roughly enough that he hoped they'd get the message to back off. He noticed a little too late that he'd reflexively reached out for Orihime, and suddenly his hand had to land somewhere or drop awkwardly in the middle of the uncomfortable dude sandwich he'd found himself in. It found her wrist with some less than believable maneuvering, and he used that contact point to pull himself the rest of the way past the two guys, who seemed resistant to parting enough for him to do so.

"Kurosaki-_kun_, hi!" Orihime answered him cheerily, sounding relieved. Her delight at seeing the new contender seemed to deal critical blows to the egos of the young men before them, who, after seeming to weigh their chances of beating Ichigo in a fight, slunk away in a huff.

Suppressing the animal instinct he had to greedily snatch the delicious-smelling takeout from Orihime's grasp and go at it like a stray dog, Ichigo turned with Orihime and let her out of the front gates to the university. Then, for the second time in as many minutes, Ichigo noticed something too late: namely, that he had at some point pulled Orihime close to him in a protective reflex, and his arm was still around her shoulders as they walked. This gaffe was only picked up on by him noticing the near-luminescent blush Orihime's face was broadcasting, and he quickly slackened the offending arm to fall at his side.

He wondered to himself why she hadn't just said something if it made her uncomfortable.

"L-listen, Orihime," Ichigo began after a moment of tense silence between them. "Maybe you shouldn't come here so much if guys are gonna harass you like that, okay?"

For all Ichigo knew, this sort of thing had happened to Orihime before without him being there quick enough to witness it. And honestly, why shouldn't he believe that it had? After all, she was...

"Ah! No, really, those guys weren't that bad, Kurosaki-_kun_!" Orihime told him, sounding flustered as she emphatically waved off his concerns with both hands as they walked. "Besides," she continued after composing herself once more, "Tatsuki taught me how to deal with situations like that, so you don't have to worry."

Hearing that only made Ichigo worry more for Orihime. Knowing Tatsuki, she had probably told Orihime how to tell off pushy guys, which was all well and good. But Tatsuki also had the battle aura of Genghis Khan working for her, not to mention knowing more curse words than Orihime had probably ever heard and having her ability to stomp asses as a fallback.

Then again, Ichigo supposed that Orihime _did_ have the Shun Shun Rikka in case he wasn't around.

"Hey, and that's another thing. I thought I told you that you can just call me 'Ichigo' now," he said with a harmless glare down at her that elicited the sheepish grin he'd expected. "We're not high school friends anymore, right?"

"I-it's just habit by now..." Orihime paused to search Ichigo's eyes, which bore into her with a look that just _dared_ her to finish with her old standby. "...I-Ichigo..._kun_."

Orihime's face lit up like a stoplight, providing a perfect shield against Ichigo's planned follow-up of her dropping the honorific as well, while she was at it. The mild admonishment died in his mouth unsaid.

"But anyway!" said Orihime suddenly, startling Ichigo as she broke out of her embarrassment. "I don't want to stop coming to see you. Tatsuki's still staying with relatives in Hokkaido, and Ishida-_kun_'s school is a lot further away, too."

Chad, of course, was off training in America to become a prizefighter. Ichigo immediately felt ashamed for not realizing that Orihime didn't really have anyone else to be with except for him. It wasn't as if she lived in a full house like Ichigo. Come to think of it, Ichigo didn't know _where_ in town she lived now.

The Kurosaki Clinic came into view down the street as Ichigo thought of an alternative. "Well, why not just come here, then?"

"You mean, to your house?"

"Yeah, why not? You can just wait for me here if you want. Then I could walk you home." Until today, all of their interactions had started and ended on the university grounds, with them both going their separate ways after finishing their daily chat during Ichigo's late supper. But tonight had spurred Ichigo to escort her to safety, and he wouldn't feel safe from now on leaving her alone wearing...what she was.

"You don't have to go that far, I—Ichigo-_kun_," she said, sounding sheepish once again, and her mind hitching on the unfamiliar casual use of his name. "But coming here does sound good, if you're sure that's alright," she said just as they arrived in front of his house.

"Yeah, it's a deal," said Ichigo with a smile. He felt apprehensive about her unwillingness to have him take her home, but his stomach told him that that was a battle for a different day. "So," he began, his gaze darting uncontrollably down to the takeout container as he tried mightily to wrangle it back to his friend's face, "what's in there, anyway?"

* * *

**Did you really think...something like a rushed and sloppy ending would be enough to kill me? My power...is the power to alter the future itself. I can even rewrite futures..._IN WHICH I HAVE DIED!_**

If there's anyone out there who read this, I'm alive. And to all those who, miraculously, kept Following me on here even though I hadn't put anything up in 5 years: I hope this story will be worth the wait for you crazies. I was scared to put it up because I haven't written too far ahead of it yet (though I know the story's climax and ending already) and was a little gun shy after letting the sequel to my first story die. But then I thought, without the motivation of having it up, it could just die unread on my laptop just like another story that I tried to write entirely in advance before publishing. It seems I need the readership to get me to keep up with it. I don't know how often I'll post new chapters, as I like to make them sufficiently long and don't publish little snippet ones, but I'm really excited about this story and I'm even going to work in ideas from the abandoned sequel to _After the War. _Please be patient with me and hopefully it'll turn out okay.

This whole story is my cathartic exercise in the aftermath of Bleach's disappointing conclusion. The main reason I stopped writing on here was because that legitimately bummed me out for a while. When you're a fan of something since 14 and it comes to a slapdash conclusion after over a decade, if you're a weirdo like me, it really takes a toll on you. And to be clear, I'm talking clearly about the rushed nature of it all, not anything pairing-wise. But speaking of, I'm obviously inexperienced in writing IchiHime, so I hope it goes well for those of you who like that pairing. I'm trying to be very even-handed in that regard. I also might be posting world-building stuff that I've thought of to fill in the many, many gaps in Bleach's story here in these author notes sections. They would be supplemental material that doesn't directly relate to what's going on in the story.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. I never wrote author's notes nearly this long on any of my previous works, but I felt like I had a lot to say. If I came back after 5 years with just a "hi" to anyone who's Followed me since _After the War_, that would be weird, right?

Happy reading,

Stinger


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